Mango

Since Singletary already wears 26, what jersey Number do you think he’ll be wearing next week?

The thing I learned the most from that is that I want to listen to Ray Lewis break down plays a lot more. Dude just has a certain gravity. Of course he’s part of the GOAT conversation.

SUPER BOWL!

When you talk about starters like Hyde (not necessarily back ups like Murphy) you should also ask: Who is his direct replacement? What does his replacement cost? Money and production? Who do we actually sign/go after with that money? What do we pay them? Because when we cut Hyde we are now missing a safety. So for at least a period of time we have a hole at safety, and a weakness at LB and Edge. IMO if we aren’t positive we upgrade those positions, it’s not worth the $5M difference between keeping him and letting him go.

Thanks for sharing. Most of the internet cap-ologists were pretty shocked by it as well. I think we are both sort of right here. The $7M they paid is the signing bonus on the $15M contract. Which would normally stick with the original team in any trade for any player. The odd part about this one is that Houston agreed to that when brokering the contract/trade. Not that they picked which parts of the contract were tradable and not. To my point a team can’t trade a player in the offseason and say, “if you throw in an extra pick, we will pay his roster bonus after your training camp. Or how about you take base salary and we’ll pay his performance escalators.” In order for the Clowney situation to happen the Pats would need to renegotiate the Gilmore contract and move more money into his signing bonus and reduce his cap hit for the next team. Whether they will do that, I don’t know. But if a team thinks Gilmore will return to form either next year or in a new environment, his $17.M-ish next year isn’t thaaat crazy. It’s basically the AAV for Tre.

I mean, the should extend everybody. But I think pre-season there was some whispers that he might be valued in the $15M range. I think some quick rounded math in my head is $9M-ish. I’d be OK with giving Edmunds $9M for one year to see if he’s worth an extension.

In theory you can trade cash, but you cannot trade cap space in that way. So say you gave a 1st for Gilmore and $10M. You don't get a $10M increase on the salary cap. NO could have and most likely would have traded away picks for the Browns, Bills, Colts, etc.cap space over the last few years. It doesn't work that way.

I'm sorry, what? (I actually like rap and Drake and have no idea what is going on here)

WTF are you talking about? I may be wrong here, but I am fairly certain you can't just break down the contract into line items and sell/buy whatever portions of the contract you don't want to deal with. A team can't just go to NE and say, "hey we'll give you a 2nd for Gilmore, and if you pay an additional X part of his contract we will throw in a 4th too".

I have actually been OK (see not happy, but not angry like a lot of other posters) with Hughes, and to a lesser extent Addison. Our bigger issue has been DT and LB which has been 2 fold. 1. Per Joe B. in the Athletic, we have Oliver lining up at 1 tech 66% of the time. He is playing out of position, so he sucks at 1 tech and now we have a hole at 3 tech. 2. Edmunds has been overpersuing a ton! He can hit the hole hard and fast, but somehow finds a way to run right by the RB. If we could get better play at 1-tech and Edmunds, we would all be much happier with Hughes and Addison. Trent is a bit of a whipping boy. I see him as JAG. If we can save money by cutting him, great, if he sticks around, OK I guess.

His cap hit this year is like $25M. I am not one of the resident cap-ologists, but it is pretty expensive for a rental this season. Next year is about $17.5M. I am actually less concerned about cost in draft capital and more concerned with managing the cap. The only way it works I think is probably with an extension as well to spread out the damage. But now you are extending a player who has not been good this year and taking a chance that he will return to form. If he doesn't you end up eating tons of $$$.

This! 4-0 in the division and 6-2 goes a long way, especially with the 7th seed this year. Random thought, wasn’t there a team (Raiders maybe?) around 2010 that went 6-10 on the year but won all of their division games?

I think people get worked up by total cash. But by percent of the cap not much has changed. Kelly made about $3.1M per year on a $35M cap. Just under 10%. Outside of 5-ish QB’s that’s right around where the bulk of QB’s are. Given the rule changes it is not surprising that passers have creeped up a few points, but it’s not out of the ordinary.

In order to fix the DL you need to basically cut half to 3/4 of them. Then replace them. All the while you also need help at CB2 and nobody knows what the hell is going on at either LB position. So sure you can “fix it” by taking some dead cap. But you then don’t actually have a DL and you have to replace them. Like I said, you can’t just cut everybody and generically say, “oh well FA and the draft”. We have the highest paid DL in the league with minimal performance. That’s not just a cut and replace a guy situation.

Sorry I meant to say starting experience. But to the over all point, I wouldn’t feel comfortable at all if AJE was our only DE on the roster.

I have a feeling that the swing and a miss in all that cash on the DL from last off season will be a problem that will take a few years to rebound. It’s a Beane failure compounded by some uncertainty around what to/if you pay Edmunds/Milano plus a new Allen contract. Cash to performance wise, this DL sort of reminds me of the Walker Dockery signings from like 15 years ago.

I am as not upset with the DL situation and the production of our FA’s as anybody. But we can’t just drop them all because money, contracts, and production. We HAVE to have planned upgrades, not just say “the draft and FA”. Murphy, Addison, Hughes leaves exactly zero starting DE on the roster. You probably keep Hughes and Addison one more year. Jefferson probably gets cut with Murphy.

I think we agree here. An Edmunds extension will probably be something closer to what he and his agent thinks they can improve to because of measurables, not based on what he has already done. It will be interesting to get an idea of where everybody values his play as that time inches closer.

So basically we should start welcoming him to Buffalo?

I mean, even if they played nothing but Sunday at 1pm games, they would play 3 games in 14 days 100% of the time.

Where did McD say he was their long term solution? I know he said he had faith that Edmunds would figure out a way to get back on track, but I missed the part you are referencing.

What are your greatest needs then? I get OL, but pass protection has been pretty good, just not run blocking. CB depth is a major need, but I think the secondary has had major issues because the pass rush never gets there and the safeties have been creeping up to help in run support. Getting an upgrade at DT I think helps Hughes, Addison, Oliver, Edmunds, and our secondary.

I have not spent much time with this trade because I doubt the Jets move him in the division without a major price tag. But if they were to do something like this, 2020 would be the year to do it. We barely have college football and grading prospects will be much more of a guessing game than years prior. Probably safer and possibly more beneficial than in years past.

I think you got that a little backwards. His first 3 years were dirt cheap, like $8-9M against the cap. $25M this year $17.7M next year. His dead cap for 2021. So the Pats can get out of it for like $7.7M. If this were last year I would absolutely consider it for Buffalo. We had tons of space. We spent way too much on not even good play on the front 7 and then a ton more on old man Norman. I would rather have Gilmore next to Tre for two years than AJ Klein, Josh Norman, and Trent Murphy at approximately the same value (you can pepper in some combination of Addison, Butler, and/or Jefferson) (Disclaimer: Not knocking Beane- Totally just a "what if") https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/new-england-patriots/stephon-gilmore-9820/

This occurred to me earlier. I don’t think he set course for that. But given his loss of practice due to Covid, then dropping 2 in a row. It is the hand he is dealt at the moment. He’s missing basically half of his starters due to opting out. He could tank and still come back with a top 5 defense and a rookie QB.